New, New and More New

After much anticipation, tonight was the night I tried my first recipe out of the brand new Clean Eating Classic Comfort Foods! This new cookbook combines all of my favorites: clean recipes, delish foods and pretty pictures. Bam!

So, for the cookbook's debut in our house, I stepped a teeny bit outside of my comfort zone with this one. Normally - as you may have noticed - when recipes call for fresh herbs/spices, I rely on those little jars to get me through. I don't have a garden (and most likely never will. I do not like to garden. There. I said it.), and I feel like buying a whole gaggle of fresh whatever is kind of a waste of money. Yes, I can be cheap with stuff. And lazy when it comes to chopping up little bits of herbs. Because really, who wants to do that? But tonight, I went with the real deal. Clean-tastic!

OMG did a commercial just use the phrase "neti pot thingy"?? I approve.

Baked Greek-Style Pasta with Mint and Pea Pesto
Source: You know the source! Clean Eating Classic Comfort Foods

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp EVOO
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 3/4 lbs lean ground beef or lamb (went with beef)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (used refrigerated)
• Pinch sea salt/pepper (skip)
• 1/2 c. low-sodium chicken broth (used no-salt added)
• 12 oz whole-grain rotini (used penne)
• 1/2 c. low fat feta
• 1/2 c. skim cottage cheese
• 1 c. frozen peas
• 1 packed cup fresh mint
• 1/2 packed cup fresh parsley
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (didn't use fresh)
• 2 tsp lemon zest (skip)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Add peas and cook for approx. 1 min. Transfer peas to food processor; add mint, parsley, green onions, 4 tsp oil and 2 tbsp water. Pulse until finely chopped, about 30 seconds. Scrape into a large bowl, stir in lemon juice and zest. (Use a super big bowl, btw)
• In a large skillet, heat 2 tsp oil on med heat. Add yellow onion and cook until soft, about 5 mins. Stir in beef, garlic, salt/pepper and cook until browned. Add broth and cook for 1 more minute. Remove from heat.
• Meanwhile, cook pasta. Reserve 1/2 c. pasta cooking water (I started the pasta at the same time as the peas, btw).
• Add pasta and reserved water to bowl with pesto and combine. Add in beef mixture. Transfer to a 13x9 dish and sprinkle with feta and cottage cheese. Bake until golden, approx. 20 mins.

Yield: 8 servings (1-1/2 c. per serving)
Calories: 299; total fat: 9g (2g sat, 3.5 mono, 1g poly); 34g carbs; 8.5g fiber; 4g sugars; 20.5g protein; 186mg sodium; 27mg chol

Reviews:
The hubs took one look at the empty (green) blender bowl and turned his nose up. You know how he feels about green. AND this includes ground beef - we all know how the kid feels about ground beef. So I was kind of expecting the worst from the boys. Yet, they were both members of the clean plate club. The recipe was delish. My only small issue? After about 22 minutes in the oven, the top wasn't super brown, so I popped on the broiler for about 2 minutes to crisp it up a teeny bit. 

Ranking:
Three Forks: Kind of a lot of prep for a weeknight, but once that was complete, it was fairly easy to prepare.

Extreme food close-up!